


The Biweekly Meeting of the Tartarus Survivors

by xixixixi



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Better, M/M, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, everyone is sad, hopefully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-02-22 07:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13162017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xixixixi/pseuds/xixixixi
Summary: Everyone else is moving on with their lives after the war, but Percy, Annabeth and Nico are still struggling to survive. If meeting twice every week to try and desperately put themselves back together with broken friendship and fragments of advice from the internet helps, they're willing to try it. And so the biweekly bonding of the Tartarus survivors is arranged.





	1. Miles to go Before I Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really think that the damage of Tartarus just faded away after Percy, Annabeth and Nico returned from literal Hell. You would think that the largest demigod gatherings in North America would provide some kind psychological and emotional support after a war, but this is the painful recovery of three demigods trying experimental self-help.

Percy burst into his room, only to trip over Nico, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He fell with what he hoped was the grace of someone who has plenty of experience falling from much higher heights, and somehow managed to land on Annabeth who was thankfully on a pillow. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and tried to peek through his eyelashes and hair at, luckily, the only two occupants of the room to have witnessed the spectacle.

Annabeth and Nico both fired terrifyingly identical looks of amused annoyance at him, and Percy was 90% certain that they had been secretly practising together to maximise the scare factor of the Look. He attempted to untangle his legs from Nico’s with as much dignity as he could.

And then the box of condoms fell out from under his shirt.

Percy flushed, and desperately trying to make sure no one managed to read the incriminating label, he launched it into his bathroom before slamming the door shut. The silence that followed ensured they all heard the unmistakable splash. Panicking, Percy concentrated on making the toilet water violently pound the box into a soggy mush, before all evidence magically disappeared from existence with an unhappy gurgle from an overworked cistern.

Satisfied, Percy pointedly avoided looking at the faces of his friends, and dropped onto a pillow on the floor.

“Shall we begin?” he said nonchalantly.

Annabeth raised a deadly eyebrow, and Nico looked worryingly confused. Percy carefully chose to ignore both of them, instead peeking at the website open on Annabeth’s laptop, catching a glimpse of a cheerful-looking blog titled ‘How to Get Over It’. Maybe if he pretended nothing just happened, the others would forget about it.

“Are you trying to pretend that nothing just happened?” Nico asked incredulously.

“What just happened?” Percy frowned.

“There are going to be fish dying because of you tonight, Percy. When I hear the ringing in my ears, I’m going to find you and tell you exactly how many poor souls have choked on plastic.” Nico continued, determined not to let Percy get away with this.

Percy’s eyebrows knitted. “That’s not going to happen, I’ll fish the thing out of the sewers myself.”

“I hate to ruin your show of impressive dedication to the fish, but condoms are made of rubber, and they’re going to float, so all you’ll need to do is fish them out of the toilet.” Annabeth injected, her mouth twitching. “And if we get a good enough explanation, maybe Nico and I will be very considerate and try to not use the bathroom until you take care of it.” Percy considered this for a few seconds, before he realised that Nico had stood up.

“You are an actual child.” Percy glared threateningly at Nico, who was already halfway to the bathroom.

Nico shrugged. “Hey I’m not you, I can’t control fluids.”

Percy was truly regretting several recent life choices, as he reluctantly dragged himself into the bathroom, and focused on making sure an air bubble was around his hand at all times.

“So Jason ambushed me on the way here, and gave me this _updated_ version of the talk,” Percy started, “He was so prepared, and he even showed me this little colour-coded chart of the time I spend in my cabin when Annabeth is also ‘suspiciously unavailable’. I couldn’t exactly tell him to cross-reference it with the graph he probably has of _Time Nico spends somewhere, probably brooding_.”

“I don’t brood.” Nico muttered.

“You were made for brooding.” Percy said. “You have a resting brooding face. It looks like you’re contemplating the meaning of death when you’re sitting next Will at the camp sing-a-long, and that’s pretty much the only time I know for sure that you’re not actually thinking about death.”

Nico stuck his tongue out at Percy.

“This has Piper written all over it.” Annabeth said frowning, “I’ll convince her that she’s got the wrong idea before…”

“It’s too late.” Percy interrupted dramatically in a tone of utter despair, causing Annabeth to look at him in alarm. “The whole camp has the wrong idea now.”

“Wait a moment are you telling me that you two have _not_ done the deed yet? Guys come on, Leo’s running a bet, and the whole camp is in on it.” Nico cut in. “And there is little more I hate than giving money to Leo.”

“Nico I expected better from you.” Percy tried to look disappointed. Annabeth looked worse, and Percy noticed Nico refusing to glance in her direction. Smart boy.

“Wait so have you, or have you not?”

“That’s not the point. The point is when Jason tried to smoothly pass this box to me, he made it look so shady everyone thinks they witnessed a drug deal.”

Annabeth lightly punched Percy in the arm. “So in conclusion, no one thinks you’re high, and no one thinks that we are reproducing like rabbits, you’re just a melodramatic, unreliable narrator.”

“I like to imagine that a book narrated by me would be filled with my incredible humour and special brand of sarcasm.”

“Your humour consists of jokes during the worst times possible and self-deprecation.” Nico retorted. “And it’s going to get you killed.” Everyone fell silent for a while, dragged back to the reality of how Nico had already been brushed or really attacked by death so many times at fourteen, how Percy and Annabeth had probably already lived more than half of their lifetime, and that surviving this long was a miracle created by themselves, and not the gods.

“The ‘We Survived Tartarus’ ~~Squad~~ ~~Cult~~ Society” sign (Sorry Nico, but Annabeth’s scarier than you, and he who wields the sparkly blue glitter pen has the power to meekly agree with his all-knowing girlfriend) is hung on the wall, as it is twice every week, because looking at it always made Percy feel like the raging void inside him was halfway normal and that he wasn’t the only person to have literally gone through hell and dragged his broken self out of it. There were other ways of being reminded of this, like the haggard faces of his Tartarus buddies, under the skin deep disguise of ‘I’m fine’, but Percy preferred looking at all the possible misspellings of Tartarus in the world.

“Are we going to do good things? Because I don’t really have good things, but I’m in the mood to try and make some things that happened sound good.” Percy asked finally.

“I have a good thing.” Nico said quietly.

Annabeth looked pleasantly surprised. “Sure, go ahead Nico.”

“Will asked me if he could take me out for dinner tomorrow.”

Percy sighed, “I ship you guys so much.”

“That’s great Nico,” Annabeth encouraged, “Just- put my mind at rest by telling me that you guys are not going to McDonalds.”

“I have literally fed it to dead kings before, and if they liked it, it’s good enough for me.” Nico pointed out with a shrug.

“Okay, but can we just consider the fact that a Happy Meal has the nutritional value of a leather shoe, and that while this may not necessarily matter for dead people, it does for you?” Annabeth countered.

“They have little apple slices though, surely that must count for something?” Percy asked.

“Not if you opt for fries instead of apple slices, and can you really look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re going to pick apple slices over French fries?” Annabeth stared at Nico intently.

“Annabeth, if I genuinely chose apple slices over fries, I would admit myself to a mental asylum.”

Percy allowed himself a moment to just feel happy for Nico, because he could see the difference that Will Solace made, it was as clear as the sun rising after a what seemed like an eternal night, and simultaneously killing truckloads demons with its light. They hadn’t officially become a couple yet, but already, the whole camp was buzzing with anticipation, and the rumours were growing by the second. A couple of days ago, Percy had heard someone saying that they were about to run away and elope in Scotland to the sound of authentic bagpipes and live out their days to the eternal song of sheep.

“My good thing is that I finally managed to get a decent sounding octave on my kazoo.” Percy said with excitement. He didn’t expect a Nico to violently thrust a pillow at him, barely managing to dodge at the last second. Annabeth buried her head in her arms with a groan.

“If I hear another ghastly buzz of that torture device, I will end you.” Nico warned with his hands braced over his ears.

Annabeth looked like she was praying for Apollo to wake up one day, and finally take mercy on her, by smiting every last kazoo on earth into a smoking pile of ashes.

“I’m so sorry Nico.” She muttered. “I have created a monster.”

Percy felt for a moment as if he couldn’t breathe, as if an invisible hand was pressed against his face, and he could almost hear the voice of the pit snarling in his ear. It sounded like his own voice. He had once choked Akhlys, and now he was choking himself.

He did his best to wrestle a smile onto his face as fast as he could, but Annabeth was just too damn smart sometimes, and he could see that she had narrowed in on the mere seconds in which his expression turned vacant. It had always worked like this, it was the way of the world. Although everyone else’s concern bounced off his shield of lies until they were convinced and smiled kindly at him, Annabeth was always tearing through the walls he had hastily thrown up in those moments of unawareness. This wall, like the others, came crashing down. He could breathe again.

“I’m fine,” He gasped, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

In the moment, he had felt as if his heart had stopped beating, and that his mind couldn’t handle anyone else, especially Annabeth, thinking what he thought of himself almost every night. That he was a monster, he was an abomination, and that maybe the universe would see a time when his hands are soaked with the blood of his friends. Percy was sometimes certain that he could feel a darkness rising up his throat, and was only slightly comforted when he retched into the toilet and it was merely his lunch that came up. He hadn’t tried to use his powers in weeks because the idea of so much power in hands as unstable as his, made him cringe away from the thought. Staring at his trembling fingers right now just cemented that decision.

Warm hands suddenly covered his shaking ones, and Percy looked up hesitantly at Annabeth’s eyes. _I’m so sorry_ , they seemed to repeat over and over and Percy understood that. Sometimes things were more powerful and less contained as thoughts, and other times, you just couldn’t bear to say them out loud.

“It’s fine, I’m really good now.” Percy said finally, trying to copy Annabeth’s steady breathing until he felt he could face the world on his own again.

When Percy looked at Nico, he saw that he was glaring at the wall with enough hateful energy to send it to the Underworld, which was impressive considering it was an inanimate object.

“Nico? Are you okay?” He asked carefully.

Nico exploded. “Am I okay? You’re the one that just had a flashback to literal Hell, and Annabeth’s the one that looks like she wants to hurt herself for making a joke, and the gods are the ones who still don’t care that there are three demigods falling apart and losing the pieces in here.”

Percy knew that Nico was furious at the gods sometimes, how could he not be, and Percy’s thoughts often got lost down the same burning path of anger. That’s why when someone bust out the hard topics like this, it was hard for any of them to fix the atmosphere before it sucked them all into what was starting to seem like rebellion against the gods 3.0.

“We are trying to glue ourselves together with friendship, and random pieces of advice from the Internet, and it’s not _working_.” Nico continued, his eyes red, “And I just need everyone else to care for once.”

“That’s not true.” Annabeth said, her voice thick, “We could be a lot worse.”

“How much worse, because the majority of the time, I feel like dying in the War wouldn’t have felt as shitty as still being alive like this is. At least then, I could know for sure that the gods were saying, ‘you’ve done enough. Rest now’.” Nico’s voice cracked. “I’m just so tired, I’m so tired.”

“Nico, being alive is-” Percy started, and then felt silent. He couldn’t finish the sentence, because he could feel exactly the type of pain Nico was in. The emptiness in his chest seemed to amplify in the presence of two other beings that had the same hole, as if they were all feeding on each other’s darkness, and gradually being eaten up all at the same time.

Percy knew what Nico meant. It’s the feeling when you’re so tired, each blink takes longer as it gets harder and harder to wrestle your eyes open, and everyone else is screaming at you to stay awake, but their voices never matter as much as the temptation.

“It’s…It’s worth it sometimes.” Percy finally finished.

Nico laughed bitterly. “Thanks a lot Percy that makes me feel a lot better. Pep talks were never really your strong point.”

“Don’t you think that we need to live for those moments though? Those tiny points in time where you just sigh and think ‘I’m glad to be alive.’” Annabeth said quietly. Nico just shook his head and stared at the Tartarus Society sign. He smiled so morbidly, Percy had to turn his head and look away because he couldn’t bear it.

“It’s not enough. They’re just not worth it.” Nico said. He stood up, and walked to the door. Neither Percy nor Annabeth moved to stop him. “Meeting adjourned.”

Percy didn’t even notice when Annabeth left, but when he looked out the window the sun had already set, and that was another day, slipping out of his fingertips.

  
He collapsed onto his bed, and prayed to Poseidon for help.


	2. And they stuck me together with glue

And they stuck me together with glue

_Nico_

Nico groaned into his pillow as the sound of high-pitched happiness outside his window violently woke him up. He fumbled around blindly in the dark for a few seconds, bewildered by the fact that everyone was awake in the middle of the night. And then he froze as realisation slapped him in the face.

“My eyes are still closed aren’t they?” He sighed, opening them to squint at the bright morning sunshine. “My life is just one big joke.”

His blinks grew gradually longer and longer until Nico decided that he was fighting a losing battle, and just closed his eyes. In his defence, it felt as if Hercules himself was clamping down on his eyelids. Such was the power of two hours of sleep.

It had once been Nico’s motto that sleep was one of the most important rituals of the day. His logic was that there were no drawbacks to unconsciousness with occasionally entertaining hallucinations. Tartarus had shown him how very wrong he was.

Children of the Big Three had always suffered from vividly prophetic dreams, also known as horrifying nightmares. But as a son of Hades, he had always had a degree of power over the realm of dreams, and so there was a period of his life when dreamless sleeping became his one and only hobby. But now, even this tentative control was dissolving. Wrestling himself out of the persistent nightmares that followed each other relentlessly was starting to take a toll on him, and now he was wasting hours just recovering from sleep.

And as if being betrayed by his ex-best friend, sleep, wasn’t enough, while Nico lay paralysed in his bed, too tired to shift an inch, his forever unhelpful imagination began to provide the images of his sweat, particles of dirt and flakes of skin slowly seeping into his bed, making him feel unreasonably disgusting. He hadn’t been able to gather the energy to take a shower last night, having instead curled up on the floor, trying to remember what happiness felt like. And now, the longer he lay, the more he was tainting his sheets with the unshakeable scent of death that Nico could never wash off.

Other demigods were born with the ability to smell like the freshest sea breeze to ever waft, unadulterated sunlight, or freshly baked shit, while Nico got to smell like decomposing bodies. Which was metaphor for his entire life really, thanks a lot, Hades.

Nico wasn’t sure how long he had been awake for, and the feeling of time dripping through his fingers in this way was beginning to feel too familiar for comfort. Everyone was moving forward without Nico di Angelo, and he couldn’t even bring himself to care. Granted, he had once cared so much, chasing after the shining beacons of normal demigods that had carved their own way towards happiness.

Some of them were handed a gleaming future wrapped with a bow, and some of them, like Percy and Annabeth had burned down their terrible fates with their own hearts and lived through the pain in order to create a future with only a possibility of their happiness in it- only to find it ripped out of their hands again. They had fought so hard, and if Percy and Annabeth couldn’t do it, even together, Nico couldn’t bring himself to even try.

Percy had jokingly called Nico a ‘senior citizen’ a few days ago, but these days Nico couldn’t help but feel like one. The ache in his body and the tragedy in his bones made his spirt feel too heavy for himself to bear. He relived his older memories like a VCR recording, watching the Titan War, Bianca’s death, and the past on a loop. “Do you love death so much that you wish to experience it?” Kronos had once asked Nico. These days, Nico would have said yes.

It was alarming that he found himself drawn with morbid curiosity to the same haunting idea over and over again. But once the seed had buried itself in his mind, he could do nothing but let it sprout and leech off his life until it cracked open his skull in order to grow to full height.

He knew it was ridiculously stupid, Nico had destroyed armies. He had shadow travelled across the world dragging the butt of a massive ivory and gold statue of a goddess with a disapproving face that sapped Nico of morale every time he looked at it (which really should count a few extra tonnes). He had survived Tartarus with the awful disadvantage of being able to see its true face (thanks again Dad), something that was not even shared with Percy and Annabeth, and yet, he couldn’t find the strength to go to breakfast. Or brush his teeth. Or shower. Or do any of the things that any idiot with far less training, with far less experience could do without trying.

Nico remembered that he was supposed to go to McDonald’s with Will today, but the event that had been his main source of strength throughout this entire week suddenly sapped his energy just by thinking about it. The last thing he wanted right now was to pretend to be fine when he wasn’t, or for Will to finally be able to see how truly pathetic this empty shell of himself was.

He remembered when Will had announced the date, with a wide smile and solid sunshine hair bouncing in front of his eyes, warming Nico to the core just by standing next to him. Nico had never felt so fond for another human being in his life.

Will was an excellent doctor, but Nico was an extraordinary liar. In the first few weeks after the end of the War, Nico could tell that Will was had subtly trying to gauge both Nico’s mental and physical health. Nico had seen right through it, and had decided that he considered his personal baggage and burdens to be his alone. It would be a crime to anchor Will to a mere shadow like himself, and that’s why, he tried his hardest to allow Will to only see the best version of him. The one that wasn’t broken, and could still be called a functioning human being. It seemed to work.

He knew that if he met Will right now, this painstaking façade of improvement and recovery that he had built up and maintained could disintegrate in seconds, and Nico would be left with nothing but dust again. Will would care too much, he always did, and that care would be wasted on Nico. So it was better for everyone really that he just let Will down this one time instead of letting him down for life.

Nico rolled over and tried to go to sleep at eleven o’clock in the morning.

 

* * *

 

_Percy_

Percy had his hands around Bob’s neck, and somehow, he was throttling him with strength that far exceeded any mortal. It wasn’t real, but he couldn’t let go, and he couldn’t stop hearing the laughter of Tartarus echoing endlessly in his head. In fact, he couldn’t do anything, except watch helplessly as the life in Bob’s silver, pleading eyes dimmed and disappeared. His hands wouldn’t move, strangling the body even after, and so Percy stood there with tears of blood streaming down his face, helpless to the whims of Tartarus.

“Now this is just cruel, Percy Jackson. It seems that even death is no escape from your wrath,” the darkness smirked at him. “And consider me impressed. It’s not every day you see a demigod overcoming his fatal flaw.”

“What do you mean?” Percy barely managed to spit out of the corner of his frozen mouth. He winced as the laughter, which sounded like screams, grew louder.

“Oh, everyone knows the story of your unfortunate fatal flaw, I suspect even little baby monsters get taught it as a bedtime story. Once upon a time, a powerful demigod gets cursed with loyalty, and his enemies cheer because what an exposed weakness to exploit. Nab a friend from here, and kill a few parents there and you get yourself a near-godly nuclear bomb. Except little Percy Jackson grows up, and throws his friend Bob to certain death, proves all those gods, and titans wrong, and lives happily ever after.”

Percy felt like he had stopped breathing. He had always clung on to the hope that Bob and Damasen were still alive, they were immortal after all. It was what his guilt had talked him into, trying to reject the bright red of more blood on his hands. But he had just been deluding himself.

“Everyone’s so confused Percy,” a lilting voice continued. “We all thought that it was impossible for you to leave behind a friend like that, so we want to know what really happened. Did you not consider Iapetus a friend, after all he did for you? Were you so selfish and desperate for life that your loyalty meant nothing? Did you forget his sacrifice in order to forgive yourself?”

In this moment, Percy was glad that he couldn’t say anything, even if he wanted to, because he had no answer. There was no possible excuse he could make for himself, and so he simply added this to the growing pile of reasons of why Percy Jackson is a horrible friend.

“Percy you’re scaring me,” Annabeth’s voice said, and Percy felt his throat constrict. _That’s the one thing I never wanted to do_ , he thought.

“Percy, please wake up.”

Percy slowly emerged from his restless sleep, to see a blurred image of Annabeth hovering disconcertingly close. There was a dampness of fresh tears on his face that was not so unusual these days, and Percy wiped one onto his finger to confirm that it was only salty water, and not sticky thick blood to his great relief.

“You were crying in your sleep.” Annabeth told him with concern written all over her face.

“Was I?” Percy tried to say as lightly as he could trying to disguise the racing of his heart. “I can’t remember what about.”

Annabeth’s face was sceptical to the extreme, but something in his expression must have convinced her that Percy didn’t want to talk about it. She generously changed the subject.

“You didn’t turn up to breakfast this morning. Neither did Nico.”

“I don’t think Nico’s had breakfast in a few months,” Percy pointed out, “When he does go, he doesn’t eat anything anyway. And to be honest, not eating breakfast is probably like #100 on his list of problems right now.”

“It’s not really about that, he at least usually sits with Will at the Apollo table in the morning, and Will always manages to force feed him a few pieces of cereal. I’m pretty sure that Nico tries his best not to miss out on any excuse to talk to Will. But Will just asked me then if we knew if anything happened to Nico, because he isn’t in his cabin and they were meant to go out for dinner together today remember? I’m worried because Nico was so excited yesterday, even if he tried not to show it.” Percy fumbled for his clock for the time, because the way Annabeth was talking, it sounded like it was almost time for dinner.

“It’s five in the afternoon?” He sat up in shock. “I had a canoeing lesson to teach at three.”

“I cancelled it with Chiron for you. We thought that you needed the rest, since you haven’t been sleeping well for days. But judging the state of your dreams, I guess I should have woken you up.” Annabeth said frowning. “But yes, it’s five, and so Will is understandingly agitated about Nico’s whereabouts, because no one’s seen him all day.”

“Did you say that he broke into that Hades cabin and that Nico wasn’t in there?”

“No, why on earth would I say that? I meant that he knocked on the cabin door, and no one answered” Annabeth looked at Percy with the same amount of judgement an average person would use on a madman.

“Then Nico’s in there.” Percy said with a tone of finality.

Annabeth looked dubious. “I know that he said he likes to pretend that you don’t exist when you’re knocking on his door sometimes, but I don’t think that he would refuse to answer Will like that. Maybe you forget that he likes Will a lot more than you.”

“Okay, just because he said that I’m not his type doesn’t mean that he hates me okay. I’m not a lot of people’s type. In fact, I’m not Piper’s type, and she loves me platonically.”

“Fine, I admit it. This friendship between Piper and you concerns me a lot. I live in constant fear that you two, with your combined stupidity, are either going to accidentally kill each other or  do something like become the worst trendsetters ever seen in Camp Half-Blood, and bring Pokémon Go and fidget spinners back from the dead, which is where they belong.”

“Funny that, I happen to have-” Percy reached under his bed to retrieve the bedazzled blue fidget spinner he had made a few months ago.

“Don’t. You. Dare.” Annabeth said, hitting Percy with a pillow each time to accent her words. Annabeth had an intimidating power of being able to hit you hard enough with pillows that they felt like textbooks and Percy took great care to never incite pillow fights during the sleepovers the Argo II crew occasionally held.

“Okay, okay, I yield.” Percy coughed from under her barrage holding his arms up in a surrender. “Let me put brush my teeth, and then we’ll go smoke Nico out of his cabin.”

 

* * *

 

After Percy pulled on a clean Camp Half-Blood shirt (he had been wearing them for the last few weeks because they made him feel like he was truly back at home), they set off for the Hades cabin which loomed ominously with torches of Greek fire and bone-lined pitch black walls. Percy didn’t know how Nico stayed in there comfortably, the whole thing screamed Underworld and to Percy, the Underwood screamed Tartarus.

With their strategy suitably formed they reached the door which was locked, with the Hades cabin being one of the few cabins in Camp to have a lock (Nico said it was about privacy and not having irritating idiots burst in on him all the time). Percy looked meaningfully at Annabeth.

She shot him a look that said _you better be right_ and pressed her thumb against the doorbell, keeping it there. They heard an incessant ringing from inside the cabin, and could barely make out a Nico-sounding groan. Percy raised his eyebrows at Annabeth in victory.

After a few seconds, no further movement or signs of life could be heard from inside, so Percy moved around the cabin to one of the windows, and peering inside it while knocking on the glass and shouting at the lump on the bed.

“Nico, I swear on the Styx, if you don’t get out of that bed right now, I will flood your bathroom and drench you in toilet water.” Percy was subjected to a chilling death glare, which Nico somehow maintained terrifyingly, without breaking eye contact, as he rolled out of his bed onto the floor where he continued to lie lifelessly.

“Okay, guess what genius, if you don’t get off the floor, and go to McDonald’s and order a kid’s meal and a McFlurry, and allow yourself to be happy for once in your life, I am _still_ going to flood your bathroom.” Percy stopped his knocking, to reach out a shaking arm towards the water pipes threateningly, and hoped that Nico heard the unhappy gurgle of his sink. He desperately wished that this would be enough to get Nico moving because the fear of using his powers, with Nico prone to damage, stole his breathe away and started a trembling that he couldn’t stop.

There was a moment of silence, except for the ringing of the doorbell that Annabeth was still holding down, and Percy let out a gasp as he unintentionally made Nico’s toilet start violently spraying water in his general direction, at which Nico leapt off the floor, swearing a string of creative curses that had Percy wincing. Percy bit his lip. He had been barely let go of a millimetre of his control, and an impressive volume of water had already accumulated on the floor.

“Jackson, if you don’t put that water back into the toilet, so help me, I will string your bones into a necklace and chew on them every night after you die.”

“What the fuck, Nico?” Percy muttered under his breath as he tightened his hand into a shaking fist and carefully guided the water and let it fall back into the toilet with a splash. His lip was bleeding now, but this was easier than trying not to makes the pipe burst. There was only a limited amount of water that he was trying to control now, there was no way to accidentally drown someone.

“Why in sweet Hades did you take all the moisture out of my room? It feels like I’ve been mummified in here!” Nico yelled. Percy felt a freezing fist grip his heart as he realised that he could have actually mummified Nico just then. If he relaxed his grip of his power another inch, it was entirely possible that it would have been sufficient to suck every molecule of liquid out of the room, killing Nico.

His breathe came out in short gasps which might have been _sorry Nico, sorry Nico_ as he tried his best to suppress a panic attack and slumped against the cabin wall with his head in his hands. He had known that his powers here unstable, but he had still risked Nico’s life out of stubbornness or idiocy, he didn’t know which. He didn’t know how he could ever make up for such a betrayal. He didn’t know how he was going to prevent himself from doing it again.

That was it. He was done putting the lives of those around him in unnecessary danger. He dazedly supported himself against the walls as he slowly made his way back to the door. No more powers for good. He would figure out the details later, but right now, he had to focus on Nico.

The cabin finally fell silent as Nico opened the door grouchily and Annabeth let go of the abused doorbell.

“Well, what do you want?” He spat angrily with bloodshot eyes and an unhealthy pallor to his skin.

“Nico, do you realise that you’re meant to be somewhere right now? Will is looking for you, you’re meant to be on your date.”

At the mention of Will, Nico slumped pitifully against the doorframe, and closed his eyes. “I can’t see him right now guys, I’m begging you, tell him that I’m sick or something. He doesn’t need to know, he can’t know.”

“Nico, he’s a doctor, he’s never going to let the sick excuse slide.” Annabeth reminded him gently.

“And what do you mean that he can’t know?” Percy demanded suddenly making his way around the corner, having recovered enough to look normal, “Can’t he know that his boyfriend is suffering, and that you’re not invincible? Do you think he’s going to blame you for being a little wrecked right now? There are demigods that went insane from half as much trauma as you!”

“No!” Nico shouted back, “He can’t know that he has a thousand better choices out there that don’t need a lifetime to fix, that aren’t going to waste his time by being a deadbeat trauma victim.”

No one spoke as they all absorbed what Nico had just said. Percy felt his heart drop as he understood what Nico was feeling right now.

Perhaps Nico thought that it was fine for him and Annabeth because they both understood the darkness inside each other and that they could comfort themselves with the fact that they were both broken and that no one was dragging the other down. But it really wasn’t like that.

 Sometimes Percy would wake to Annabeth’s screams, and not be able to lift a finger to help her, because he was still frozen by his own nightmares. Sometimes he begged the gods to make Annabeth forget what he did to Akhlys because sometimes, he caught it in the corner of her eye. A glint of a newfound fear. Of him. And it had only grown because she had seen personally what Tartarus had made him into, because there was no way she could pretend that it wasn’t his fault. She had seen with her own eyes the way that evil that had drowned the love out of his head, leaving only hate and misery.

In fact it would have been so much less pain for her if he had managed hold on for a few for minutes, for Jason or Frank to pull them up, but it was his fingers that had given up and forced them to be tortured to a point where he had lost himself. And if he had lost himself in that blood-red hell, and left the Perseus Jackson the hero with loyalty down there to die along with Bob and Damasen, then he was beyond redemption, beyond saving.

“Do you think, Nico,” Percy said quietly, “That you don’t deserve saving.”

Nico just stared at him in defeat. “I’m not like you Percy. I still think that I deserve be saved. Just not by Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the response to the the first chapter, it really encouraged me to keep on writing.


	3. The way Hope builds his House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a mild warning that there are a few swear words in this chapter, because they're teenagers who've lived through hell, and if anyone should be able to curse, they should. Enjoy!

Percy had to keep himself from looking how he felt: sliced open and rubbed raw by the razor-sharp truth of Nico’s words. This is what it felt like when Chrysaor carelessly flicked his eternal weapon and defence out of his hands, when he was scraped bare and was left for the whole world to see. When they could finally see him without the usual rose-tinted glasses that they reserved for a once-hero of Olympus (he wasn’t arrogant or delusional enough to say twice, when it was his own pathetic nose-bleed that had kick-started all destruction in the first place).

He just hadn’t counted on Nico being able to see through every painful smile and joke he had thrown in his desperation, anything in order to convince those around him that he wasn’t a hopeless wreck. But of course it would be Nico, who was probably suffering just as much as him, but deserved so much better.

“Nico, you need to take that back right now because you deserve to be saved by the _world_.” Percy finally found the strength to say, after an eternity of looking into two other mine-loaded faces, each with whole universes of hidden issues and secrets that they convinced themselves into thinking that they had to shoulder alone. _It’s your turn to be happy now and you’ve waited for your turn a hundred times over_ , he didn’t say, but found the thought echoing without permission around his mind.

Because personally, as a child of a prophecy, he had already experienced enough happiness throughout his life, he really must have reached some kind of Greek hero luckiness limit now. Tragedy was something that was woven into the souls of all Greek heroes. Everyone knew that an unfortunate side-effect of being a favourite of the gods was inevitable death, and that they didn’t really mean it, but the gods just didn’t care enough about the mortal lives that flew by like seconds. Demigods were like little toys that are given to children that are much too powerful, and eventually get broken when they get bored.

Which majorly sucked for Percy, because he was pretty sure the only mildly entertaining thing he could muster up the energy to do these days was die.

“Like, I get that you think that Will is sunshine personified and too good for you or something, but he’s really in love with you, you idiot, and I know for a fact that he would do everything he could to help. And he’s a doctor. You don’t give him enough credit, he’s way tougher than he needs to be to be able to deal with your shit.” Percy continued, determined to get through to Nico somehow, anyhow.

Nico seemed to soften slightly at Percy’s vehemence. He looked away. “I think that Will is possibly the best person in the world.” Nico replied with an honest adoration in his eyes that startled Percy because it looked so foreign on this kid’s always-exhausted face. “I know that he wants to help, but I don’t want to drag him down. He’s that one guy that is too good for me, too pure for this world.”

“Wait a minute. Too pure for this world?” Annabeth crinkled her nose, distracted by the phrase she had seen too often recently, “Have you been on the internet again, Nico? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Nico looked defensive. “I’m careful. I’ve been shadow-travelling to Italy to use my phone so that the monsters don’t track Camp Half-Blood down. And are you really going to suggest that even though I time-travelled forwards a few decades, I’m not going to take advantage of this futuristic technology?”

“Please don’t say back in my day-” Percy tried to say.

“Back in my day, we used to crowd around radios and have mud wrestling matches and smear the blood of our enemies across our cheeks for the best spot.” Nico recounted, picturing an event that happened once, when some kid had accidentally had a nosebleed and it had dripped on another kid’s face. He was allowed to have some artistic license. 

“Dear gods,” murmured Annabeth.

“Did you win?” Percy couldn’t help himself, and promised that they would get back on topic immediately after this, but he couldn’t help but imagine a bite-sized Nico snapping his teeth at other kids to get out of his spot.

Nico’s eyes looked disconcertingly dreamy, “I accidentally head-butted a kid’s tooth out once, so after that, everyone would part for me like the red sea. Bianca too.”

Everyone fell silent at the mention of Bianca’s name, and the air grew cold again, which Percy guessed was all Nico. Percy wasn’t sure whether it was still a sore subject for Nico or not, but he felt like it was one of the parts of their friendship that was just left there to stew and decompose in some dark corner. Percy was never able to able to bring it up in conversation, to say her name casually felt like a taboo. What could he possibly say, ‘Hey Nico, do you want to talk about your sister? Not Hazel, the dead one? The one I killed?’

Nico looked like he was studying Percy’s face. And then he leaned back. “Relax guys, I’m really fine with Bianca now. I mean it’s been like four years and compared to the rest of my problems, it doesn’t even make top ten right now.” Nico shrugged, but to Percy, his stance looked a little forced and a little pained. “Be happy, because this is like the one topic that we can actually put in our ‘problem solved let’s never talk about it again’ box for good. I’m a son of Hades okay, I understand death better than anyone.”

“If you’re sure…” Annabeth sounded uncertain.

“I’m talking about my sister’s death, I’m not kidding around.” Nico looked ready to fight to the death to defend his words and Percy couldn’t help but feel a little lighter. He felt an urge to hug Nico, but decided that that would just embarrass both of them especially if Nico judo-flipped him (after he had heard the story of Percy and Annabeth’s reunion at Camp Jupiter, Percy had caught Nico searching Google images of judo flips once, and felt low-key terrified).

The tension had been lifted, and they all stood with looser fists and semi-content faces, though it might have been from the elation of finally having something to put in their ‘problem solved let’s never talk about it again’ box (they actually had one. It was under Percy’s bed) after hours of agonisingly probing each other’s issues to see if any of them had healed, and only succeeding in poking not-yet-healed wounds wider.

 

* * *

 

_2 weeks ago during a Biweekly Tartarus Survivors Meeting_

“So are you over your fear of spiders yet?” Nico asked Annabeth out of desperation. They were really grasping at straws now. It had been over an hour of questioning each other if they had improved in any areas at all since the end of the war, and they had been continuously let down for over an hour.

“I’m a child of Athena, I was afraid of spiders a long time before Arachne.” Annabeth pointed out. “I’m most likely going to be afraid of spiders for my whole life.”

“Okay, let me rephrase, can you look at a spider now without blacking out. Because I would consider that a win at this point.”

Annabeth looked away.

“Considering I found you unconscious in the strawberry fields the other day, with a hand-sized spider speared to the ground by your sword lying next to you, I think that’s a no.” Percy interjected.

“You killed a spider that was the size of a hand?” Nico looked mildly disgusted and mostly impressed.

“I was worried it would crawl on me while I was unconscious, so I killed it and _then_ blacked out.” Annabeth explained, looking like this was all very reasonable.

“Wow.” Nico sounded amazed. Percy decided to try to steer the subject back on track before Nico started asking Annabeth about her spider-spearing technique.

“How is your relationship with your step-moms coming along guys? Is she warming up to you? I’m pretty sure that Amphitrite kind of half smiled, half grimaced at me the when I went to visit Tyson at the forges a few days ago, so that was a pleasant surprise. Then again, I think I might have caught her mid-chew or something.” Percy said, remembering that while his relationship with his fishy step-mother was frosty, at least she had never turned him into a dandelion, or even worse seaweed, because if that happened, he imagined that Annabeth would never let him live it down.

“I mean, she hasn’t turned me into any new plants recently,” Nico shrugged, “But she told me that she would use my guts to fertilise her garden if I ever touched her pomegranates again. Never mind that they were the only things keeping me alive in that jar.”

Percy winced. That sounded pretty harsh, even for Persephone.

“I haven’t talked to my step-mother or mortal family for months, I just haven’t had the time. I send them a text message every once in a while to remind them that I’m still alive.” Annabeth voice sounded about as soft as stone, so Percy got the feeling that the text messages probably looked like Siri wrote them. He guessed that Annabeth hadn’t fully patched things up with her family, because from what limited information he had gleaned from Grover about the eight months he had spent comatose, she had spent every waking moment, abusing every single connection she had made over the years to find him. Which made his heart warm in a strange sort of achy way, and occasionally caused a new flash of hatred towards Hera, who was currently his official most hated Olympian.

Which was saying a lot because he was pretty sure that Zeus had tried to kill him about three times this week. The electric sockets in his room kept on exploding every time he walked by them, and he had been struck by lightning in the last Capture the Flag, and he knew that his bro Jason would never have used a current high enough to cause his limbs to freeze up.

“Okay, well I hate to be that guy, but I genuinely think that there is absolutely nothing to put in that stupid box, and that we’re still full of unresolved shit.” Nico shrugged as if to say _I told you so_. When Annabeth had suggested that they try to get some stuff off their chests, Nico had been the most sceptical, and had said that he didn’t think he could take his cold dead heart out of his chest.

Percy hated to admit it, but Nico was right. Not about the heart thing, but about all their fears and nightmares still being deeply locked in their hearts, still being an integral part of them, still controlling them and the flow of blood that ran cold throughout their veins. They hadn’t gotten improved enough to be strong enough to rip the terrors out.

The three of them were still in hell, and it looked like there was no way out this time.

 

* * *

 

_Now_

“How does it feel to be the first one of us too put some resolved shit in that stupid box, Nico?” Percy grinned at him, trying to amp the infectiousness up to 1000 because a Nico smile right now would be the transition from a day Percy wished he hadn’t woken up to, into the day that made this week worth living. It wasn’t the brightest or biggest that he knew, but Percy thought that Nico gave the most sincere smiles he had ever seen, because when he smiled, you could swear on the Styx that he meant it.

Percy and Annabeth held their breath. If it happened, the date could still be saved. It meant that Nico would be in a better mood than ‘about to kill a man’, and they could honestly work with that.

Nico smiled.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me you were going on a date with Will.” Jason crossed his arms and glared accusingly at Nico’s reflection in the mirror. “You told this dork and Annabeth, but you didn’t tell me?” He looked pointedly at Percy and Annabeth who were having an intense discussion concerning what shade of black Nico should wear to McDonald's. “I am the lead seller of Solangelo merchandise in this camp.”

“Maybe because you are the only one. Just because you gave Percy a Solangelo t-shirt for his birthday, doesn’t mean that you can use and abuse that title.” Nico told Jason. He turned around to face Percy and Annabeth who were now rummaging through his collection of Camp Half-Blood t-shirts, and organising them by frequency of usage (mainly Annabeth). “Hey guys, I’m kinda feeling charcoal today.”

“Got you.” Percy gave Nico’s a thumbs up, and picked out a shirt with some sort of fierce looking graphic on the front. Nico nodded in approval. Jason clutched his head as he contemplated why he lived in a world where there were more colours than he could count on two hands.

“Nico, stop moving your head.” Piper muttered as she gently forced his head straight again and continued somehow magically making Nico’s dark circles disappear. Jason had to admit that Nico was looking pretty good considering that when Percy, Annabeth and Nico had first burst into his room claiming it was a situation of utmost importance, Jason thought that it was because they needed to call an ambulance for Nico.

He had looked so pale, he was almost green, and the shadows under his eyes were so deep that Jason thought that he had been punched in both eyes. It was one of those times when the world decided that making the devil appear when you spoke of him would be entertaining (maybe it was the whole names have power thing, but no one cared about that in this era, despite Chiron’s disapproving face) because he had barely said to Piper, “I’m worried about Nico-” when Nico had come stumbling in, looking like the walking dead, doing exactly nothing to allow Jason to be less worried about Nico.

All three of them looked like hell to be honest. It was harder to see on Percy and Annabeth who looked slightly less tired and a bit more in love, but Jason could still see the exhaustion that no amount of sleep could ever cure. The way that they stiffened up sometimes at the strangest moments and how they crept over certain subjects like shadows, and looked at each other protectively as if it was the three of them against the world. Jason wasn’t sure when they had all gotten so close, but recently, it was hard miss the way they gravitated to one another unconsciously. He decided that he definitely wasn’t only worried about Nico anymore. He also decided that he would corner Percy later, because he was the easiest out of the three to talk to.

Piper was adding the last touch to an already-dressed Nico by carefully arranging his curls. Despite her best efforts of rejecting the stereotypes of Aphrodite children, Piper was still a natural at making people look heart-breaking. Nico still looked ready to kill a man, but not in his usual dark, threatening death-stare, son of Hades way, but more, ‘you’ll die from my adorableness’ which Jason would never tell Nico because, then Nico _would_ actually kill a man, and that man would be Jason.

“I think you’re ready,” Piper said with one last ruffle, “Have fun, and if a pretty goddess tells you that she’ll make your love life interesting, run.” Jason saw Percy and Annabeth nodding emphatically.

“Thanks Piper,” Nico stared at his reflection, eyes wide, like he didn’t recognise the person who was staring back at him.

“Anytime kiddo.” Piper smiled. “Go knock him _dead_.” Percy high-fived her while everyone else in the room groaned.

Nico groaned, burying his head in his heads. “Demigod power puns are _never_ funny.  Trust me, Percy’s been through them all.”

“Of _corpse_ , whatever you say.” Percy winked at Piper. She gave him a thumbs up and mouthed _nice one_ as Nico repeatedly thumped his head on the table.

“Why didn’t we see this disaster coming?” Nico asked no one in particular despairingly. “Was I the only one who realised it? I looked at Piper and I looked at Percy, and I thought, dear gods, please never let them be friends. I prayed the same thing with Percy and Thalia, and that worked out fine, but miracles don’t happen twice it seems. The universe just isn’t that kind.”

“Dude, that sounds like the start of a dramatic monologue, or a Disney song. Do you want us to leave?” Percy asked. “I feel like I’m kinda ruining the vibe.”

 “Yes, shoo.” Nico said making hand-flapping movements at them. “I need to talk to myself in the mirror for a few moments. And thank you Piper, you’re the only helpful one here.”

“Anytime Nico. And just relax, my Aphrodite senses are giving me major good vibes for this date. Come one guys.” She herded the rest of them outside the door, and gave Nico one last reassuring look.

Once they were out of Nico’s earshot, Jason looked at Percy. “You have any plans today?”

“You have that weird face one again.” Percy grimaced.

“What weird face?” Jason felt mildly offended.

“The _I have a plan that is almost as bad as yours usually are_ face.”

“Well, you’re not wrong. But key word: almost. So are you up for it?”

Percy smiled, and fist bumped Jason. “I’m up for anything that falls short of a federal crime.”

“Not a crime, but a fair warning: you may face possible death, severe injury, or at the very least, intense disappointment.”

“You had me hooked at possible death.”


End file.
